Learn one of the most important individual skills tactics in the game of hockey.

For anyone looking to improve their fishing skills, apologies, but the title of this story is misleading.

Although I’m sure Danny Heath, founder of Project Hockey, has ripped some lip slinging salmon before, his Global Skill Showcase presentation is about hockey angling, as in taking away options and forcing an attacking player to the outside.

“What you really want to do is put a player in a position to give them one option with the puck,” explains Heath, during his 35-minute presentation.

Heath, a 32-year-old product of Glendale, Arizona, played NCAA Division 1 hockey for Minnesota State University but had his career cut short due to concussions. He stayed on with the team and became a student assistant coach, while also helping out with the local high school team; he now has nearly 15 years of coaching experience on his resume, including a variety of skills work.

Heath has taught a lot of skills to a lot of players and to him, angling is one of the most important individual skills tactics in the game of hockey. In this video he walks you through the development process for teaching a player how to close gaps and properly angle.

New to angling? Not sure you understand the concept enough to teach it? How exactly does one go about teaching this skill? No sweat, Heath has you covered.

His presentation goes into how to show and teach angling, and how to dive into development.

Like any other skill, players won’t master this overnight. Heath’s teaching process includes stimulating ideas, problem solving and development using a foundation, pillars and execution; he also gets into the weeds explaining technically about closing the distance with your feet, guiding the opponent (by establishing the angle with your stick) and locking in (honouring the cut back).

Break it down, help them understand, then get the repetitions in. Easy.

“With any type of skill, there’s always a pre, a during and a post. When you break it down like that, it makes it easier for players to understand and it makes it easier to teach it and coach it.”

Heath’s goal in hockey is to give back and leave the game better than he found it. With presentations like this, he’s clearly doing just that.